Committees, Councils, and Federations in the WANA region

This workshop convenes scholars, researchers, and practitioners to critically examine decentralised, autonomist, and federalist modes of political organising in West Asia and North Africa (WANA). Moving beyond state-centric analyses, the workshop explores historical lineages, contemporary manifestations, and future possibilities in (post) uprising and (post) revolutionary contexts.

Full list of papers and presenters:

• Weston Bland - Coptic Communal Liberalism: a Comparative Case Study for Minority Politics
• Amy Austin Holmes - Kurdish Autonomy in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey (1980-2025): Introducing a New Dataset on Decentralization
• Ikhlef Fatma-Zohra - Decentralised Governance and Informal Diplomacy in the WANA Region
• Kawtar Tsouli - Decentralized Governance and Diaspora Engagement: Moroccan Expatriates and Advanced Regionalization
• Jade Saab - Anti-state autonomism in Lebanon as a model for change
• Dr. Shilan Fuad Hussain - Assemblies of Freedom: Women’s Institutions, Decentralised Governance, and the Political Production of Agency in Rojava and Northeast Syria
• Sara Elizabeth Katona - Governing without power: the roles of visibility and accountability in Sudan’s failed transition
• Polat Jan - Roots of Cultural Resilience: Syrian Kurdish Political Culture and the Genealogy of Democratic Self-Rule in Rojava

A full program for the day with abstracts can be found here.

To allow the broadest possible participation, the workshop will be held in person and online. There is no attendance fee.

For queries, please email: [email protected]